The Ossining Police Department wants everyone to be aware that two recent frauds have been directed at residents over the past few weeks. Both involve contacting someone with an emergency request that funds be wired immediately to help out a relative. In both cases requests were made to wire Western Union funds to a person posing as a relative or a third party supposedly acting for a relative in an emergency.
In each case the funds were wired to foreign accounts. Whenever you wire money it is the same as transferring cash. Once it is wired if the scammers know the account number they can retrieve the cash at any Western Union office.
If you receive a request from someone stating they are a relative, or a lawyer of a relative or friend, please don’t wire money unless you are absolutely certain it is your relative or friend. Contact them before you meet such requests. Confirm, by asking information only they could know, that they are who they say they are.
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In the first case a resident was contacted and told that the person telephoning was a cousin and need money for an emergency. After over thirteen thousand dollars were wired to a foreign country the victims discovered they had been defrauded. In the second case a request from a grandson for emergency funds resulted in the loss of over three thousand dollars.
Lt .Michael McElroy
Ossining Police
